


the Death of the Universe Comes to Us All

by ALC_Punk



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst (a bit), Big Finish Audio References, Gen, Introspection, end of the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25760182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: Missy and Me meet at the end of the universe, atop Cosmic Mountain while a universe that should have existed but never did dies alongside them.
Kudos: 5





	the Death of the Universe Comes to Us All

**Author's Note:**

> This really didn't go where I thought it would. It could be linked to the Me + Ten fic I wrote ages ago. I really like the idea of Me continually reaching the end of the universe and it changes (and she remembers) who she meets there. Twelve, Ten, and now Missy. 
> 
> I'm also fascinated by the Divergents, and deeply love the bit on Cosmic Mountain, so that features as well.

"I've always wondered how many times I was here."

Missy jerked a little, wishing she hadn't been surprised before she snorted. "How pretentious."

The woman standing at the top of Cosmic Mountain turned slightly to look at her. "You're here to let them free. Just as they were."

Her finger pointed towards a group of animatronic animals, arguing with a dying old man.

"And if I am?"

Head tilted to the side, Me studied Missy for what felt like far too long, then shrugged. "Who am I to stop you? A universe that should have existed, or so I've read."

"They've promised freedom."

An empty promise, here at the end of all things. Missy felt laughter drift through her, and she spread her arms, gesturing extravagantly. "If I give them the end of our universe, they'll set me free from all bonds."

"The dying embers of Gallifrey. Host to so many things," Me mused. She missed the chair and tea she'd had on one of her other jaunts here. Well, she had written down that there'd been a chair and tea.

"Couldn't have happened to a better planet," replied Missy. Then she smiled. The sort of smile that had once set Me's heart racing, had given her thought and purpose and so many many things. The sort of smile one saw as all hell began to break loose.

"I suppose freedom is worth the destruction of the universe." Me mused, eyes distant as she tried to recall if she'd had this conversation before. Possibly. Possibly not. Her journals were lost long ago, tumbled into the ether as centuries crumbled their pages to dust. There was only so much that scanners could retrieve from ink, and only so much data one could store in an infinite lifetime.

"Freedom is worth any price, or so I've always felt."

Liar.

Missy thought about that, thought about a lot of things as she watched an animatronic mouse slump over as its brains were stopped. Just like a human, really. Such delicate things, one wrong move, one slip, and they were so easily dead.

"It's a lovely sunset."

"Planet-set? Unverise-set? Galaxy-set? No. Something far less extravagant," Missy replied. "And don't be so specious."

"Why not, there aren't any critics left to complain."

"There's me," retorted Missy, hands going to her hips as she turned and glared at Me.

Life in her eyes again, glittering and annoyed, as though Me had pricked her with a needle. Perhaps she had.

"A critic as well as psychotic," Me considered the woman in front of her, and smiled a little. "Welcome to the end of the universe. I hope your death goes well."

"My deaths rarely go well, dear. But then, this is the end for both of us."

Me glanced behind her, where a creaking, listing column almost swayed in the non-existent breeze. "Only if you wish it to be."

"I think I've gotten tired of it all." Suddenly, Missy dropped her arms, hands listless at her side. "So many galaxies, planets, people. I've killed them all and let him save them all, and let her, well, she was a good girl to the end, though I wasn't sure..."

"Did you ever get what you wanted?"

"Yes."

Me let the silence stretch. There wasn't much reason for more talking, or anything else, really. In the distance, the sky was beginning to crumble inwards. The universe that had never been was curling outwards, though the creatures locked into it would never manage to escape. Even now, Me thought that Rassilon's terrible legacy, was full of power.

"We weren't all like him," Missy whispered. "We could have been, but we weren't. In the end, he was the only one."

"She was the only one," Me corrected, or added.

"That, too."

There was only one her, after all. Or him. Only one person would have this sort of drag upon a person's soul, even at the end of all things. "Would the Doctor want you to perish?"

"Would she want me to live is the better question."

A sneer crossed Me's lips, but she flattened it out. "I think you know her far better than I do. The answer to that question was answered generations ago. You're just dragging it out for the drama."

"Oh, I do like an articulate monkey," Missy said. Her eyebrows arched as she looked at Me. "You're one of the more intelligent ones, I assume."

"Perhaps." Focusing back on the fracturing sky above and beyond, Me thought about endings and beginnings. Winning and losing. It was all the same, in the end. She endured, as she must. The universe withered and died--she supposed the universe always had to have an ending. Even if time was constantly being re-written within. 

"You're really not as fun as some of the others, though. Too passive."

Me blinked and glanced at Missy again. "Bored already?"

"Just possibly."

Over her shoulder, Me could see the column beginning to twist and straighten. As though new life were coming to it. And perhaps it was swallowing the life from the universe as it ended. She could feel the pulse from it now, that not-quite-familiar feeling that spoke _TARDIS_ along her nerves. 

If onlys were for yesterdays, though. And she'd completed all of them. She turned away from Missy and her spacecraft, seeing the streaks and cracks reaching closer. Most of the mountain was lost already, the animatronic creations disappeared as though they'd never existed. Me closed her eyes, awaiting the pull that would end her life, that would allow her to finally rest. 

"You sure I can't give you a lift?"

"Quite." Not turning away from the oncoming nothingness, Me added, "I'm ready for death as you never were."

"You'd be surprised," Missy murmured.

There was the sound of her boots on the gravel and stone, clicking and clattering. The creak of a door, and the warmth of a TARDIS light spilling across Me's back. It closed with a soft whoosh of displaced air, and the winds of time shifted across Me's body as it dematerialised. 

Space folded around her, cracked around her, shattered into forever. And Me was lost, content. 

-f-


End file.
